The most difficult thing for traders to do is to sit there and wait. Why? Because, we live in a world that is on a total dopamine, hypomanic binge. This is never more clearly manifest than by those who absolutely have to be in the markets at all times, desperately need to be trading and simply cannot wait. They are human do-ings, rather than human be-ings.
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There is a wonderful advantage to waiting for the right entry and exit points. This allows you to be in a market- neutral mindset, and frees you from looking frantically for bearish or bullish views to justify your biases. Granted, you are not making money, but you are also (and much more importantly) not losing it. You are preserving capital. You can take time to reflect study, hone and refine your trading plan, adopt some healthy exercise and dietary habits, and become a stronger and more centered person. Simply waiting without stress for the right opportunity allows you to become a more rational and impartial observer.
Patience frees you from active involvement in the chaotic, and often reckless, behavior of others in the markets, and it puts you and your trading plan into a clearer perspective. It allows you to see yourself as a human be-ing, rather than a human do-ing.
When you first started trading, what did you hear constantly? Preserve your capital. You heard it, but maybe you did not listen, or did not understand. If you have no financial capital to use, you are out of the game. If you are chasing or getting in just to get in and are getting whipsawed daily; and you are losing, drip by drip, or in larger chunks, you are out of the game. If you are cutting your winners too quickly and letting your losers ride, you are out of the game.
If you wait, take time, assess the situation and then pounce like a jaguar at the right opportunity, your chances for trader longevity increase significantly. You have preserved your financial capital, and deployed it appropriately with a good risk/reward ratio.
Archives of “chunks” tag
rssThree stages of trading objectives.
To make money every trade. At first, I did not have the ability to make money every trade. After I had the ability to make money on most trades I realized it was a horrible objective. If you want to make money on every trade you are always waiting. You can never take that much risk and hence the rewards are very small. I was trading 1′s and 2′s to start, which was the right thing to do. I would watch my mentor take every trade, no matter how dog shit it was. As a 1 and 2 lot trader you do not have the same luxury to take dog shit trades because you can only trade one way. Because of the flexibility he had he could do more and the truth is no matter how good or bad a trade looks we don’t know until we are in it. Getting the most out of a trade is the mark of good trader. Risk is always related to reward. There is very little money in making money on every trade. This type of trading is like making 100k and keeping 80K
To make huge chunks of money. After I realized that objective did not work for me I shifted to the extreme. I started to swing for the fences whenever I had the ability. It is nice when I was right but I struck out a lot too. At this point, I did not respect trading. I did it because money made me a bad ass. Well as you know you hard to pay your bills with bad ass. This type of trading is like making 200k and keeping 80k.
Here are the major risks of having both of those objectives. The first is making small amounts of money no matter the situation. Eventually you will get in a hole because statistically you are behind. Trading every situation the same is bad. The second objective is trying to make huge amounts of money on every trade. If the first trades were the best and I stopped it was great. If the first trades were bad, I was forced to stop. It made it hard to learn.